NAME

xl -- 3Com Etherlink XL and Fast Etherlink XL Ethernet device driver

SYNOPSIS

To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your
kernel configuration file:
devicemiibusdevicexl
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the
following line in loader.conf(5):
if_xl_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The xl driver provides support for PCI Ethernet adapters and embedded
controllers based on the 3Com "boomerang," "cyclone," "hurricane" and
"tornado" bus-master Etherlink XL chips.
The Etherlink XL chips support built-in 10baseT, 10base2 and 10base5
transceivers as well as an MII bus for externally attached PHY
transceivers. The 3c905 series typically uses a National Semiconductor
NS 83840A 10/100 PHY for 10/100 Mbps support in full or half-duplex. The
3c905B adapters have built-in autonegotiation logic mapped onto the MII
for compatibility with previous drivers. Fast Etherlink XL adapters such
as the 3c905-TX and 3c905B-TX are capable of 10 or 100Mbps data rates in
either full or half duplex and can be manually configured for any
supported mode or automatically negotiate the highest possible mode with
a link partner.
The xl driver supports the following media types:
autoselect Enable autoselection of the media type and options.
Note that this option is only available with the
3c905 and 3c905B adapters with external PHYs or
built-in autonegotiation logic. For 3c900
adapters, the driver will choose the mode specified
in the EEPROM. The user can change this by adding
media options to the /etc/rc.conf file.
10baseT/UTP Set 10Mbps operation. The mediaopt option can also
be used to select either full-duplex or half-duplex
modes.
100baseTX Set 100Mbps (Fast Ethernet) operation. The
mediaopt option can also be used to select either
full-duplex or half-duplex modes.
10base5/AUI Enable AUI transceiver (available only on COMBO
cards).
10base2/BNC Enable BNC coax transceiver (available only on
COMBO cards).
The xl driver supports the following media options:
full-duplex Force full duplex operation
half-duplex Force half duplex operation.
Note that the 100baseTX media type is only available if supported by the
adapter. For more information on configuring this device, see
ifconfig(8).

DIAGNOSTICS

xl%d:couldn'tmapmemory A fatal initialization error has occurred.
xl%d:couldn'tmapinterrupt A fatal initialization error has occurred.
xl%d:devicetimeout The device has stopped responding to the network,
or there is a problem with the network connection (cable).
xl%d:nomemoryforrxlist The driver failed to allocate an mbuf for
the receiver ring.
xl%d:nomemoryfortxlist The driver failed to allocate an mbuf for
the transmitter ring when allocating a pad buffer or collapsing an mbuf
chain into a cluster.
xl%d:commandnevercompleted! Some commands issued to the 3c90x ASIC
take time to complete: the driver is supposed to wait until the 'command
in progress' bit in the status register clears before continuing. In
rare instances, this bit may not clear. To avoid getting caught in an
infinite wait loop, the driver only polls the bit for a finite number of
times before giving up, at which point it issues this message. This
message may be printed during driver initialization on slower machines.
If you see this message but the driver continues to function normally,
the message can probably be ignored.
xl%d:chipisinD3powerstate--settingtoD0 This message applies
only to 3c905B adapters, which support power management. Some operating
systems place the 3c905B in low power mode when shutting down, and some
PCI BIOSes fail to bring the chip out of this state before configuring
it. The 3c905B loses all of its PCI configuration in the D3 state, so if
the BIOS does not set it back to full power mode in time, it will not be
able to configure it correctly. The driver tries to detect this
condition and bring the adapter back to the D0 (full power) state, but
this may not be enough to return the driver to a fully operational
condition. If you see this message at boot time and the driver fails to
attach the device as a network interface, you will have to perform second
warm boot to have the device properly configured.
Note that this condition only occurs when warm booting from another
operating system. If you power down your system prior to booting
FreeBSD, the card should be configured correctly.
xl%d:WARNING:nomediaoptionsbitssetinthemediaoptionsregister!
This warning may appear when using the driver on some Dell Latitude
docking stations with built-in 3c905-TX adapters. For whatever the
reason, the 'MII available' bit in the media options register on this
particular equipment is not set, even though it should be (the 3c905-TX
always uses an external PHY transceiver). The driver will attempt to
guess the proper media type based on the PCI device ID word. The driver
makes a lot of noise about this condition because the author considers it
a manufacturing defect.
xl%d:transmissionerror:%dxl%d:txunderrun,increasingtxstartthresholdto%dbytes This
message may appear while the adapter tunes its transmission buffers under
various load amounts and are mostly harmless. It is probably safe to
ignore them.